Please help - new to fish and not sure what to do. I think something is wrong with both my bettas - 2 different tanks 2 totally different problems, what am I doing wrong? I will start with Cutes and post about Jake & his ammonia problem in another thread.

Just got Cutes June 7th from petco with new 5G tank and everything. 1st few days he was active but we have our ups and downs. Now he stays very still on the bottom of the tank and hides when I walk up to the tank, looks depressed. He flares a lot - I think he sees his reflection in the tank. I have not seen him eat in 5 days. Saturday I did 50% water change & mixed 4 tsp Epsom salt & conditioner, vacuumed rocks and then put in water, I did leave him in tank while I did water change. Added Epsom thinking he was constipated since I saw no signs of anything else. Sunday morning he looked clamped but this morning and now he is not. No food till tonight which he still won't touch. When I went to take a picture of him to post for help I saw the shiny stuff and remembered reading about Velvet on here. Could it be velvet or could it be something else or am I just worried to much?

Housing
What size is your tank? 5 gallon
What temperature is your tank? was 78 but changed to 81 last night
Does your tank have a filter? yes
Does your tank have an air stone or other type of aeration? no
Is your tank heated? yes
What tank mates does your betta fish live with? none

Food
What type of food do you feed your betta fish? Wardley Betta Food & Aqueon Betta Treat but bought Omega One yesterday and tried that today but wouldn't touch it.
How often do you feed your betta fish? Once a day 2-3 pieces

Maintenance
How often do you perform a water change? 2-3 times a week
What percentage of the water do you change when you perform a water change? 25% - 50%
What type of additives do you add to the water when you perform a water change? Splendid Betta Complete but bought Prime last night and haven't used it since I have epsom salt in and no high levels

Water Parameters:
Have you tested your water? If so, what are the following parameters? Yes daily and no problems since I got Cutes on June 7th. Was using test sticks till yesterday I got API fresh water kit

Ammonia: 0 - never has had any. Since new tank its never started cycle
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 0
pH: 7.8 - 8.0 my tap water is this high
Hardness: soft
Alkalinity: between 120-180 (used stick test here)

Symptoms and Treatment
How has your betta fish's appearance changed? none that I knew of till I tried to take a picture of him tonight and saw shiny gold looking stuff
How has your betta fish's behavior changed? Hides, stays on bottom, hates light or the hood of his tank or something.
When did you start noticing the symptoms? Friday - not eating again
Have you started treating your fish? If so, how? Yes - see above. 1 teaspoon of Epson Salt per gallon for constipation & turned heater up because he seems to like it better warmer. Epsom salt still in tank - have not done another water change.
Does your fish have any history of being ill? Don't know brand new - June 7th
How old is your fish (approximately)? Dont Know

Thank you. What could be making him not eat then? He stays on bottom most of the time. I laid in his Plant at the top for about 20 mins today then went back to laying on the gravel. Still hasn't eaten anything in 6 days. I leave for a week Saturday and I am worried about him.

Very often when you bring a Betta home they're stressed from the move so they won't eat for about a week even with daily offerings (sounds like your sacrificing someone haha) but eventually when they are used to their home and get hungry enough they'll eat. My extreme case, Rembrandt, pictured in my avatar did not eat for the first month that he was home. I realized that not only with the stress of the move but I was leaving his light on all night when I wasn't there >< So he couldn't sleep so that was bad on my part. But eventually after the month was up he was hungry enough and settled in enough to eat something and eventually at some freeze-dried BW's and finally got onto pellets and has been happily and hungrily eating pellets since!

Now...why are you using Epsom on him? And the 2-3 changes a week? You also don't need high levels to use Prime, it's a regular conditioner so just use it whenever you do a water change on the new water. Use it on the new water before you put it into the tank.

Thank you all. Cutes died today while I was at work, my daughter is going to be so upset when she gets home :( not sure what happen but be has some kind of scaly growth looking stuff on him and his tail is almost gone. He was not that way when I left for work. I'm guessing he was sick when we got him and already dying is why he never really seemed right.

How do I disinfect everything to make sure nothing happens to next fish we get? My tank never started cycling since we only had it 2 weeks.

You can do a few different things. If you want to take it all down then I would do a vinegar rinse for the tank, just use white vinegar and swish it around. I then use paper towel to soak up the rest and rub it all in the inside. Then you rinse out with every hot tap water until you no longer smell vinegar, you may have to rinse a few times. Let air dry completely.

For decorations/heaters/thermometers/siphons I grab a bucket, fill it with very hot tap water and use a 1 parts Clorox Bleach to 19 parts water solution to disinfect over night. Make sure if you do the siphon that you get water all throughout the hose, you may want to disconnect the hose from the siphon part. Then after an 8-10 hour or just over night period I rinse everything out under the tap, dump the solution and refill with hot tap water. Let everything soak about 4 hours, repeat (dump, rinse and fill again) and then after another 4-ish hours I let sit in a regular tap water with 4x conditioner concentration to make it aquarium safe again.

The hour markings that I posted here are just suggestions, you can do it longer or shorter if you like. You can even do a 10 minute rinse/soak with the bleach solution, hour under hot tap water, rinse, hour again in the 4x conditioned water and you'd be good. I do longer soaks for if the disease/illness was really bad so the times I suggested was what I feel is appropriate for your tank now.

I'm very sorry about Cutes though, I'm sure he was a wonderful fish and he's swimming under the wonderful Rainbow bridge right now with some other fishy friends